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It’s been a while I know. A lot has happened in my life. I have stumbled, fallen, gotten up and putting myself back together. I am realising how strong I am, what I am capable of and learning to forgive myself for the mistakes I have made. What I struggle with the most is not beating myself up as I am extremely hard on myself. I have learned the power of family and friends. I have learned that my capacity for love far exceeds what I imagined. My life these days is a mixture of realizations, lessons and becoming mentally and emotionally stronger. When I started this blog, I had just moved into my own place, I was discovering the world on my own and under my own terms, Today, once more I am facing the world on new terms, under different circumstances and with some fears. Nonetheless, I know that fear is not an option and in the same way I tackle new countries and new experiences, so too will I face and conquer this phase in my life.

Today, in an effort to cheer herself up a friend of mine listed 6 positive things in her life and encouraged others to do the same. I started to respond with 6 of my own and found that I was unable to. I have always taken pride in my pessimistic nature but lately I have been working on countering that notion as I have come believe that you get what you expect. My first thought was to feel positive about my weight loss but I still worry about gaining it back and returning to the bad habits I strove to abandon. Then I thought about my job which I love and which allows me to indulge on of my main interests but I fear losing it one day. Then I thought about taking pride in the new body I worked hard for but I focused on the arms I think are too flabby and the chest size I lost. After this I was pretty much done trying to come up with anything else positive. But as I write this I am going to go out on a limb and name a positive even though the negative is lurking in the background. I am grateful for my sister. I visited her this weekend and for the first time in our lives, I can wear her clothes! I arrived dressed to run errands but she insisted that I go to church. Being that I was not dressed for mass, we rummaged through her closet and found something for me to wear. Because I love her and care for her immensely, she possesses the ability to annoy me so much that I have to take breaks from her. However, spending half a day with her this Sunday and arguing over $5 reminded me that she was my first constant childhood companion, my first constant playmate and my personal cheerleader.Yes… I am glad for that!

Let me start by saying: I am a pessimist. I say this in an attempt to excuse what I am about to say. I think funerals are fake! Carefully selected loved ones come before a congregation and talk about how wonderful the corpse lying in front of them was. Even if the dead person was BTK, everyone who comes forth always finds something nice to say about him. “He was such a cute baby.” “He never cried.” “He was a wonderful husband and father.” Never mind that he went out at night and killed. For whatever reason, it seems sacrilegious to mention any wrong doings the dead is guilty of. So why begin a missive titled “Happy Birthday dear sister” with a rant about funerals? Well it is my sister’s birthday and I wanted to write an open letter to her but I did not want it to be nothing but praise because that is so not reality. So be forewarned sister, I am spilling some beans in here!

Chère soeur, I do not remember much about my childhood but the earliest memories I have are with you. You were my constant companion and play mate. I remember going to school and looking forward to retuning home so that I could play with you. I do not remember us ever fighting. The adults used to say it was because you were so tiny as a child and I was… much bigger. But I do not think that was the reason; we just got along well. As we both know, you were very smart as a child. Do you remember switching our cups of juice while I Continue reading →